Diamondbacks' Chris Young seeing offensive results after tweaking his swing

by Nick Piecoro - Mar. 26, 2012 07:16 PMThe Republic | aczentral.com

The change in his swing is so subtle that if you're not looking for it, you might not see it. But Diamondbacks center fielder Chris Young has noticed a difference this spring training. His manager has, too.

Though he has been regarded as one of the league's better defensive center fielders throughout his five-plus seasons in the majors, Young has had his ups and downs at the plate.

He slammed 32 home runs his rookie year in 2007, but was briefly sent to the minors two years later. He made the All-Star team in 2010, but has never hit higher than .257 in a season.

He always has been able to hammer mistakes, but certain pitches, particularly a well-placed slider down and away, have, at times, confounded him.

"When I watch all the good hitters," Young said, "they get the hard hits and they get the other ones where their path was right and their bat was level through the zone and it allowed them to have more room for failure. That's been what I've been trying to get to."

And so he went to work in the off-season. Starting in November, he went through various tweaks and incarnations until he came up with a swing that had two new wrinkles.

First, he's holding his hands higher. Instead of starting them lower and bringing them up as he begins his swing, he's just starting with them up.

"It makes it a lot more natural for me to go down to the ball if my hands are a little higher," he said.

He's also trying to keep his hips closed longer as a way of not being as susceptible to sliders.

"I see him staying on more pitches on the outside part of the plate," Gibson said. "He had a much shorter swing path before, with the bat in and out of the zone.

"(Now) there's more length to it. ... They're going to fool you sometimes but maybe you keep it in long enough to get a foul ball. Then you stay alive and they make a mistake and you pound it. That's how it works."

Young's results in the Cactus League have been outstanding. He's 17 for 42 (.405) with five doubles, three homers and eight walks. It's the way Young has compiled these numbers that has him encouraged.

"It's more the type of hits that I've been able to get," he said. "I've had a couple of line drives up the middle, a double to right-center, a couple of base hits to right field. Not driven, but tough pitches. That was the category I wasn't getting enough of -- singles. It wasn't the doubles or the homers, it was just the base hits."

Young still wants to be able to crush the mistakes. But he also wants to do more against the tough pitches.

"When you have a couple of strikes on you and you have a tough pitcher, sometimes those are the type of hits you've got to get," he said. "Sometimes pitchers have their days and instead of going 0 for 4 maybe you mix in a 1 for 3 with a walk. It helps your game out and it helps the team out a lot."